


Odd Stars, Odd Souls

by ficlicious



Series: Stars Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Scenes, Crack, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Orphaned Vignettes, Other, Outtakes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Random scenes, weird thoughts, plot points I didn't use. Updated sporadically. Not chronological.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Break Stuff Alternate Scene

**Author's Note:**

> Stars Through Her Soul
> 
> Chapter 8: Break Stuff
> 
> Alternate Opening

“J, call Rhodey.” She stands by the window, resting her trembling palms on the storey-high glass, staring out over the city. She focuses on the fragility of the glass, and how very far it is to the ground, because otherwise, she’s going to put her fucking fist through the pane.

“Yes, ma'am.”

The line rings, and Toni leans her forehead against the glass. She closes her eyes, adrenaline surging wildly, screaming at her to run, to hide, to fight, to kill. She forces herself to take deep, shuddering breaths, choke it down, choke it deep. Sink it into ice and stone, let it smoulder.

The line rings through, four, seven, ten times. Toni lets it ring. Finally, it’s picked up. “Toni? Toni, I’m kinda in the middle of something here, hon. Congressional hearing about–”

“I don’t give a fuck.” Her voice is calm, eerily calm, distant and strange. “I’m calling in every single motherfucking marker I have with you. Every fucking late night call. Every fucking pizza and beer night. Every goddamn late night bitching about significant others. Every fucking _circuit_  in War Machine. Every motherfucking _scrap_  of goodwill and loyalty you have for me. I am calling them all due, and I am fucking calling them due _now_.”

There’s a pause. Rhodey’s voice changes, she can’t define how, it just does. Somehow, his voice shifts from Rhodey-the-friend to Rhodey-the-overprotective-asshole. Which is fine. Dandy. Peaches and motherfucking cream. That’s who she needs. “What happened?”

“I’m going to war.” She opens her eyes, stares out over the city. Her vision blurs, narrows, goes red. She squeezes her eyes shut, blinks them until they’re clear. “I am going to mother _fucking_ war.”

A note of uncertainty, wariness. “Toni…”

Her hand trembles, fists, squeezes until her knuckles bleed white. She relaxes it, stills it until it has the strength of titanium. “With. Or. Without. You.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Something snaps.

With a wordless shriek of rage, she snatches her chair, comfortable and leather and thirty pounds if it’s an ounce, and hurls it fifteen feet across the room, through the shatterproof glass separating her office from the reception area. “ _THEY TOOK MY SOULMATE._ ”


	2. Alternate Flashback: Wrathchild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scene I ended up not using for Chapter 1: Wrathchild
> 
> Misogyny rampant.

Daddy’s throwing a party, and the ballroom is filled with drunk men and tired-eyed women. Toni is supposed to be charming the guests, because she is told she is an adorable little girl, with her black, glossy ringlets and her bright blue eyes, and Daddy’s business partners think she’s cute when she acts like a tiny adult. Toni does her best, but she doesn’t like the noise, the cloying smells of perfume and cologne, cigarette smoke and body odor. She doesn’t like the way some of the men pinch her cheeks, and she especially hates the way she’s expected to perform like a dancing monkey. Every time she tries to escape and sit quietly with a book somewhere out of the way, Daddy or Uncle Obie find her and drag her back out into the stink and the noise to meet one of their “friends”.

Toni has long since had enough by the time half the guests are reeling over themselves with drink, but Uncle Obie fetches her from her corner again and asks her if she can settle an argument between him and Daddy, because he thinks the current market is satisfied with technology being produced, but Daddy disagrees, so what does she think?

There’s a crowd of eager faces, flushed with alcohol, waiting for her to say something, but she ignores them and just focuses on Uncle Obie’s face. “No, Uncle Obie,” she says primly. “I don’t think current technology can meet the demands of the market, because the market reads Asimov and watches Star Trek, and wants things we can’t make yet. We’re going to have to learn how to miniaturize processing chips while improving the speed, but once we do, there’ll be computers in everyone’s pockets.”

Daddy is smiling, she can see him in the corner of her eye, and it’s a real smile, one he rarely lets out. Toni likes to please her father, even though he’s an exacting, demanding man, so it makes her smile in return. Uncle Obie beams widely, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder, squeezing warmly. “What’d I tell you?” he says, swinging back around to the onlookers, who are laughing in delighted disbelief.

“Oh my god,” says one woman, who’s hair is mussed and who’s lipstick is smudged (Daddy has a matching stain on his collar, Toni notes, but says nothing of her observation, because Daddy is happy right now). “You weren’t kidding, Obadiah. God, Howie, do you make her memorize this shit before we all show up?”

Toni opens her mouth, indignant, but Uncle Obie’s sudden squeeze on her shoulder is warning enough to make her close it again. She feels more than hears his deep, rumbling laugh as he pats the top of her head. “Naw. She’s a goddamn genius, is all. Whoever ends up marrying her is going to have their hands full, but imagine the kids she’ll have. Her sons are going to be fucking world-changers.”

Toni grits her teeth and down by her side, hidden in the folds of her big frilly skirt, her hands tighten into fists. She bites down the instinctive reply that bubbles to the back of her tongue, a smart-mouthed comment that the world will already be changed by the time she has sons because _she’s_ going to change it, because she knows better than to say it out loud, because Mama has told her that no one likes a sassy child, and she’s supposed to be on her best behavior. “May I go, Uncle Obie?” she asks instead. Uncle Obie nods, still grinning, and Toni all but flees out of the ballroom.


	3. Deleted Scene: Coulson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This directly follows Fury and Coulson's conversation aboard the Helicarrier in Chapter 12

Only in his car with his white-noise generator and LEDs on to scramble any audio or video recordings does Phil opens the first sealed file, the one labeled “Consultant Stark”. Inside, he finds dossier folders labeled  _ Barton, Romanoff, Banner, Rhodes, Danvers,  _ and _ Stark.  _ Three much thinner files, like they were thrown together hastily, last minute:  _ Rogers  _ and  _ Blake  _ and  _ Barnes _ . In the Stark Industries folder is a thick sheaf, bold typeface on the first page reading “PROPOSAL FOR THE FOUNDATION OF THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE. LEVEL 8+ EYES ONLY.”

Phil stares at it for a long while, thumbs through the pages, skimming the budget proposals and the legal research and the recommended methods of fundraising. Risk analyses, merchandising opportunities. An entire PR plan to promote the Initiative. The Stark Solutions folder spills out schematics and plans for weapons and communications gear, recommended armor ratings, technical diagrams and material lists. On and on and on.  

Phil spreads it all out in front of him, months and thousands of research hours of planning and legal framework, everything from housing and feeding Avengers to equipping them to patching them up after injuries. Toni’s lawyers are going to have to go over it with a fine-tooth comb, and Toni herself is probably going to redesign everything from Barton’s arrowheads to the quinjet he thought he glimpsed in the schematics… But everything is there, and if the message wasn’t obvious before, it’s clear as crystal now. 

“Toni Stark and her world-conquering AIs,” Phil says, with faint wonder and frank admiration. “Fury, you cagey son of a bitch.”


	4. Civil War, Stars Verse Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Jesus, I needed to do something to make myself feel a little better today after _that._ Have a flash piece, vaguely future Stars verse.

She can still feel the impact of the bullet against her palm.

She examines her hand in the light spilling through the window, a neon glow from the city that paints her skin with muted color. She runs the fingers of her other hand over the calluses and tiny white scars that map where she’s nicked herself a thousand times in the workshop, and for the first time in a long time, she has trouble recognizing her own flesh.

If she squints hard enough, she can see Rhodey’s blood slicking her palm. Feel the phantom slide of warm metal locking into a gauntlet around her wrist. Hear the ominous, deadly ring of vibranium carving through titanium-gold alloy, a nightmare long banished she never thought she’d have to experience again. 

She closes her eyes, leans her forehead against the window, holding herself steady with a light press of fingertips on the glass. She can’t make sense of any of it, not a single bit. Can’t fathom how the team would divide. Can’t understand how any of them could look at each other with hate in their eyes. She cannot suss out the basic equation, and she has no idea how to begin calculating the variables that go into something as monumental and abhorrent as the Avengers’ civil war. Can’t figure out why everyone she loves more dearly than life would stand against her. She’s trying, but she can’t do it. 

“Jesus Christ,” she says hoarsely, and her breath fogs the glass in front of her mouth. This is going to haunt her for a long time to come, churning in the back of her mind, an endless loop of calculations that will run until Armageddon. She stares out at the city, the glass cool against her forehead, trying to shake off the horrible hollow feeling in her chest.  


Behind her, cloth rustles and the mattress creaks. “Toni?” Steve’s voice is heavy with sleep. She glances over her shoulder to see him pushing himself upright, looking around for her. On the other side of the bed, Bucky snuffles into a pillow and flips over. 

“Right here,” she calls softly.

Steve’s head orients around, looking a little more alert, and his mouth turns up in sympathy. “Another nightmare?”

“Yeah,” she says, and takes one last look out at the nighttime skyline.  


“You with me?”  


She turns back towards the bed with a start. He’s watching her with a steady gaze. She smiles. “Always.”

He holds out a hand, crooking his fingers to beckon her. “Then come back to bed.” 

“For a little bit, anyway.” She pads across the room to slide her hand into his, let him drag her back under the covers. “Think I finally figured out how to make the reactor the size of a watch battery,” she says as she burrows back down. “I want to hit the workshop soon.”  


“Do it after the sun’s up,” Bucky grumbles from under the pillows, but hooks an arm around her waist, effectively pinning her. “Shut up and go back to sleep now.”  


“Yes dear,” she says and closes her eyes. Fragments of her nightmare swirl, but she banishes them with a sigh. Civil war in her family is a battle royale for the TV remote and loud arguments over fictional relationship pairings, not gunshots and looks of betrayal and trying to carve pounds of flesh from each other.  


Her brain will figure it out soon enough. In the meantime, she’s very warm and very comfortable, and she could stand to get another few hours of shuteye before she handles power tools again.


End file.
